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History and Intimacy

History & Intimacy

What stays in the mind after travelling in Umbria is that extended, medieval vernacular style of simple yet elegant stonework that seems a natural geological extension of the ground itself. The countless hilltowns, monasteries and isolated castles that are dotted throughout Umbria's mountainous landscape have grown organically over centuries, house interlocking with house, Etruscan wall merging into medieval loggia, in a seamless unity whose subtle colour variations are those of nature itself. Every cobbled lane, every ancient doorway, at times it seems every stone that you see, carries with it a richness of historical reference that would have few equals in the world. Umbria's fabric of vernacular architecture seems to grow harmoniously out of the land itself.

The small patchwork fields reflect Umbria's long history of relative poverty, and the intimate and finely patterned landscape with it's mediterraenean trilogy of grapes, wheat and olives gives the scenery a human scale which is deeply satisfying.

Then in addition to the immediately and forceful beauty of the landscape, there are Umbria's hilltowns and their manmade features.

The beautiful and little known town of Bevagna, just down the hill from Montefalco with whom it still has an ancient rivalry, is an excellent example of this. It is picturesquely situated in rich farmland behind a set of defensive walls whose perimeter is exactly what it was in Roman times, when Mevania was famous for the milk-white oxen bred for temple sacrifice. That a town can stay the same size for two thousand years might be considered by some as a limitation, but in my view Bevagna is very much the right size for satisfying urban living. Sitting in its austerely beautiful central piazza with a view down the Via Flaminia to the lush countryside beyond the walls, one realises just how much a town like this is built on a human scale - "a misura d'uomo" as the Italians say.It is this intimacy, I think, that is one of the secrets of Umbria's great appeal. The towns perched on hilltops for defence, surrounded by walls and with houses clustered together for security but also for sociability, this was man's first and longest experience of town living, and in my opinion it speaks to our psyches on a very deep level. It has a lot to do with the way the three and four storey buildings are built up to and over each other with tiny alley ways and a couple of "piazzette", all in a range of fifty metres. Thousands of years spent living in places like this is, I'm sure, is one of the reasons for the deep sociability of Italian people.

The Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi, decorated with the frescos of Giotto, Lorenzetti and Simone Martini, ranks with the very best of Europe's great monuments,

as does the Duomo of Orvieto, a magnificent combination of Romanesque and Italian Gothic that is one of Europe's greatest cathedrals.

There is the extraordinary aqueduct that links Spoleto to the mountain behind it, the unforgettable Etruscan gate at Perugia, Gubbio's Palazzo dei Consoli, Todi's cathedral of San Fortunato and many others.

Porta Camiano at Montefalco

Wandering around Spoleto with its winding streets whose layout has remained substantially unchanged since the time of Christ, one is constantly reminded of a past whose continuous flow has deposited layer after layer of cultural sediment. From the ancient Umbrians on to Roman times, to the barbarian invasions and the arrival of the Goths and Lombards, then through the dark ages and into the medieval period there are reminders at every corner.

Porta Annibile, Spoleto

Spoleto's old city wall

From an extraordinary base in enormous, irregular but perfectly fitted limestone blocks constructed by the Umbrians in the fourth century BC as they braced themselves for the Roman assault, the ancient city wall wall goes up to equally massive but more rationally rectangular masonry of Roman times, and then to the higgledy-piggledy but well made work characteristic of the middle ages where no stone was too heavy for a single man to lift. It is a concise visual representation of two millennia of history.

Umbria's political decline can in fact be traced to this period, as the independent city-states were one by one swallowed up by their bigger neighbours. Situated just a little too close to Rome, Umbria would eventually come under the not always benign control of the Papacy where it remained in effective stagnation until the arrival of Garibaldi in 1861. The lack of capacity to regenerate and compete with the ever-larger political units dominating Italy in the late middle ages was no doubt unfortunate for the Umbrians, but the centuries of relative economic decline that followed mean that for us today the region offers a uniquely clear view of what our world was like six hundred years ago, uncluttered by much of what came afterwards.

UMBRIAN APPETITES

Our selection of local cooking classes are based on a variety of recipes rooted in ancient tradition and some of the finest natural produce in Italy with the the accent always on genuine flavours. Events often include seasonal ventures into food foraging, truffle hunting, cheese or wine making or oil pressing according to the time of year. Cellar wine tastings of Montefalco's award winning Sagrantino wines are included all year round.

UMBRIA BELLA

From one central and comfortable base in Montefalco you will have the opportunity to experience the lifestyle and varied riches of Umbria. You will wander through local markets, delightful piazzas, and be brought face to face with a vibrant and attractive way of life that has deep roots in an ancient past. Guided tours are organised to impressive locations within the towns where Etruscan arches, Roman architecture and Renaissance frescoes form a fascinating collage.

Table Cell

Table Cell

Trevi

Then in addition to the immediately and forceful beauty of the landscape, there are Umbria's hilltowns and their manmade features.

Morcicchia

I spent five years in this tiny village and one of the most surprising realisations it provoked was that it was possible to live in a thoroughly urban environment while at the same time being fully immersed in the real countryside.

My progression from this haven to a slightly bigger village two hilltops away was undertaken for various reasons, one of which was the thought that we owed it to our growing children to have more contact with people their own age than was possible in a village whose youngest other inhabitant was nearly seventy. Another was the irresistible desire to live in a thirteenth century castle tower, because this in essence was the ruin that we optimistically thought could be turned into a home and whose previous owners seemed rather happy to sell to us. After two years in which I worked long hours rebuilding walls and manoeuvring massive oak beams, I had become something of an expert in medieval building techniques and our new neighbours decided that if I was mad, then it was not in the way they had at first thought. More important, we had a beautiful place to live where we could experience on a daily basis that penetration of the past into the present that makes living in this central Italian region such a soul-nourishing experience